The transition from the status of slave to that of freedman was perhaps not so abrupt and marked as we might at first sight suppose. It is probable that many a slave of the better and more intelligent class found little practical change in the tenor of his life when he received the touch of the wand before the praetor. Some, like Melissus, the free-born slave of Maecenas, actually rejected the proffered boon.(701) There was, of course, much cruelty to slaves in many Roman households, and the absolute power of a master, unrestrained by principle or kindly feeling, was an unmitigated curse till it was limited by the humane legislation of the second century.(702) But there must have been many houses, like that of the younger Pliny, where the slaves were treated, in Seneca’s phrase, as humble friends and real members of the family, where their marriages were fêted with general gaiety,(703) where their sicknesses were tenderly watched, and where they were truly mourned in death. The inscriptions reveal to us a better side of slave life, which is not so prominent in our literary authorities. There is many an inscription recording the love and faithfulness of the slave husband and wife, although not under those honoured names. And it is significant that on many of these tablets the honourable title of _conjunx_ is taking the place of the old servile _contubernalis_. The inscriptions which testify to the mutual love of master and servant are hardly less numerous. In one a master speaks of a slave-child of four years as being dear to him as a son.(704) Another contains the memorial of a learned lady erected by her slave librarian.(705) Another records the love of a young noble for his nurse,(706) while another is the pathetic tribute of the nurse to her young charge, who died at five years of age. The whole city household of another great family subscribe from their humble savings for an affectionate memorial of their young mistress.(707) Seneca, in his humanitarian tone about slavery, represents a great moral movement, which was destined to express itself in legislation under the Antonines. And the energy with which Seneca denounced harsh or contemptuous conduct to these humble dependents had evidently behind it the force of a steadily growing sentiment. The master who abused his power was already beginning to be a marked man.(708)